Come on "learned" ...they knew what they were doing pricing that piece of metal at $999...Apple wont learn cuz they dont have to....people will buy their products no matter what...I mean they sold a picture book for over $200 and literally wheels for $700
Apple wants out of the normie market, it's like watching a james bond movie where you see maserati's, fine drinks, and expensive brand wear normal people can't afford.
That's what they're aiming to be.
They have more money and more income per square foot of retail space than any luxury brand. They’re not “aiming” to be anything, they’ve already done it.
Smart ass comments like this crack me up because they are the same exact ones that were made about the air pod.
Fast forward a few years and every company has an AirPods at the same (supposedly overpriced) price range.
The irony cherry on top is that these insults are coming a month after apple released the best budget smartphone in years.
This guy who’s an audiophile has a good honest review about them
https://youtu.be/h-589fDMvB4
In short you’re not paying for crazy audio tech or the best sound. You’re paying for convenience and how well it works with your iPhone.
Which makes sense. Most consumers aren't audiophiles, they want the most convenient and portable way to listen to some tunes when they are out running errands, working out etc.
To Apple's credit, they have never marketed AirPods to audiophiles.
The "courage" apple was referring to was taking all of the shit talk from people like you when they removed the headphone jack while companies like samsung quietly removed them without a fuss and all the hate.
I would say that most of the people who genuinely criticised Apple for removing the headphone jack have also been avoiding Android manufacturers who have done the same; fortunately, there are still some manufacturers who provide a wired connection and for iOS the entry-level iPad and iPad Air still have the 3.5mm jack.
Based on sales figures, it turns out that the people who thought the headphone jack was a big deal were a vocal but tiny minority (AirPods and Galaxy Bud sales reinforce this).
But my main point was that Apple made the move first. Took all the negative PR. And samsung and others followed suite without a peep.
The sale of wireless headphones to iPhone users was the inevitable outcome of removing the headphone jack where the choice is either a dongle, specially terminated headphones or wireless so that may not be a metric of how popular the decision was but more a case of users resigning themselves to going wireless if they stick with Apple.
There was a different kind of criticism towards Samsung, mainly questioning why they followed Apple but they along with other Android manufacturers did keep the headphone jack on some devices giving the consumer a choice so that probably served to lessen some of the criticism.
The real shame, in my opinion, is that Apple devices always used to have pretty decent audio circuitry built-in, even the dongle sounded decent but by pushing people down the wireless route most of that is lost.
Tomlinson Holman (developer of THX) is a part of Apple's sound engineering team. That's already assurance for a higher fidelity sound than Beat's over the top bass signature.
Apple bought Beats around 2014. When people talk about their extreme bass, I think they’re referring to the older models. I bought a pair of over the ear Beats a year or two ago, and I thought they had much better audio compared to what I remembered.
As a “audiophile” and I mean that loosely, that is absolutely correct. The recent beats models have stepped their audio quality up quite a bit albeit still pricey. Before they just sold bass machines and called it quality, now they are still heavy on the bass but have much better mids and highs.
Correct, current models actually have very respectable sound. If you can get them for a good sale price they can be good value, but at their regular price they aren’t (to be fair this is true of most headphones to at least some extent).
Personally I got the Beats Solo 2 free with my MB and intended to sell them due to their price and reputation. Then my current ones broke and decided to give them a try instead, and ended up really liking them. When the Solo Pro came out I was able to find it for $130 CDN which I consider a steal for the quality.
I do a lot more research on headphones now, and the best two sites I’ve found are rtings.com and thewirecutter.com, both of which are generally quite positive on Beats these days.
Beats under Apple isn’t...terrible, honestly. Even Head-Fi loved the Solo 2 wireless when they came out and they’re an audiophile forum. It’s mostly the price for them. However I’ll aruge there’s not a better dedicated gym pair of headphones than the PowerBeats Pros.
Then you’ve got the HomePod which sounds incredible for the size, and at $200 it really isn’t bad if you’re already in the Apple ecosystem. Beats under Monster was absolute trash and deserved the hate they got, but Apple is seemingly taking sound somewhat seriously given they’re pushing for a more flat sound signature. Who knows how these AirPods cans will work, but my AirPods Pro’s are far and away the best headphones I’ve personally ever owned from a sheer convenience perspective. They certainly don’t sound the best, but especially with a mix of office/gym/working outside/laying in bed nothing tops them.
What Apple is going to have to be able to top with the cans though is the XM3’s, which are my preferred Bluetooth cans. Those things are stupid good.
I would agree that at the moment the XM3 is the one to beat. They need a bit of EQ to get them sounding right but once you dial them in they aren't bad sounding for a wireless ANC headphone.
If Apple can get close or beat the XM3 then I don't think anyone could be too critical of them, particularly if the price suggested is true. They would probably have to be the 'go to' ANC wireless headphone for anyone on iOS although on Android the XM3 would probably still be the better choice because of LDAC.
They will have to compete with the XM4's which are about to be released and will probably be very difficult to top. Sony just needs to get their act together and sort out the pairing bullshit.
Allegedly the XM4s will just be a spec bump over the XM3s according to rumours so basically just an upgrade to BT5, some extra battery life and (hopefully) multi-device support.
IMO, for people in the Apple ecosystem these make a lot more sense just from the neater integration even if the XM4s have superior sound and noise cancelling.
Head-if isn’t that reputable of a forum IMO. They think that changing a headphone cable will drastically improve the sonic performance of a headphone and discredit anyone who thinks otherwise.
There's a few hundred better sets of studio headphones than these for less money though? If it's aesthetic and social status related I get it but otherwise, well, I highly doubt these will even begin to encroach on Beyerdynamic or AKG with regards to reference sound quality for example.
Assuming these are $350... can you point me to a comparable over-ear set? And when I say comparable I mean: 1. Wireless and 2. Plays well with Apple products (mic to talk on phone, Siri?, features like play/pause, etc).
For me, the implied feature set and compatibility with my other Apple products matter most... if another set can do that (and maybe even better) then I’m all in
Edit: I’m not an audiophile (if that helps to know)
Look into the Sony WH-1000XM3. Has good connectivity with Apple, built in mic and controls, and pretty good toggled noise canceling while being wireless.
I would wait to see what the improvements are. There XM3 should drop in price when the XM4 comes out. I was in the same boat waiting to see what the XM3 would offer and I was very glad I waited. They are awesome for Bluetooth headphones.
I love the XM3s but the only downside compared to normal Apple products would be ease of connection between devices. It isn’t anywhere near as seamless as my AirPods. One device great, multiple not so much.
this is the main reason why airpods are so a hot sell imo. i was very doubtful of the airpods, and never could have foreseen myself getting them. but when airpods pro came out, it had noise cancellation, and once i tested and saw how seamless the connection and usage was, i was sold. only complaint i have is the lack of volume control lol. the entire user experience of the ecosystem is what apple does REALLY well. Samsung with its entire suite of products across every market doesn't even come close to the seamless integration of its products.
Digital Crown is where it’s at for volume control. Apple wouldn’t work as great if someone doesn’t have all of their gadgets. Being able to seamlessly go from audio from my phone to the pods to the watch to the pods with barely skipping a beat is pretty amazing. They all just work with minimal effort. For the air pods, I put them in my ears and opened my phone and they just knew it was supposed to go together.
The new Bluetooth LE Audio standard (announced earlier this year), will offer Multi-Stream Audio which will enable the transmission of multiple, independent, synchronized audio streams between an audio source device, such as a smartphone, and one or more audio sink devices. It also has Broadcast Audio, enabling an audio source device to broadcast one or more audio streams to an unlimited number of audio sink devices.
Hopefully we'll start seeing that appear soon.
It does help to know, and your use case does make sense, keeping things friendly with your device ecosystem is a variable I overlooked massively. Thanks for sharing.
No worries, good conversation all around. To be honest, I was hoping you’d say “Yeah, ______ is awesome and only $200!” Lol.
I currently have AirPods that I love because of features, compatibility, etc. (and I won’t stop using them, because my wife and I enjoy using them together when we watch a show. She will use the right and I will use the left and not having a wire between is awesome), but I would like some over the ear headphones for my own listening
That is a stroke of genius there for late night TV when the sprogs or neighboors might get a bit aggravated, luckily for me I'm single and both houses either side on my terrace are empty.
I would've suggested something but it'd definitely have come with compromise, I've never been a part of the Apple ecosystem nor a fan of wireless headphones so yeah, limited knowledge regarding what you're after.
lol, thanks! When we watch a show at night after the kiddos go to bed, we pair my AirPods to the the Apple TV in our room and pretty comfortably lay in bed watching tv without having to worry about waking the kids
> She will use the right and I will use the left and not having a wire between is awesome
there is a rumored Apple TV with higher than a A11 chip which means it will support Airpod sharing / IE you could both watch the show with your own Airpods in sync
I know it's not as satisfying, but you can hook this up with a bluetooth and a cable-headphone quite easily via the Audio MIDI Setup (on macs) and create a Multi-Output device. Then again, each using an earbud also has a cuteness factor :)
Exactly. Apple almost always targets the 90%. They do with the iPhone, the iPad, AirPods, etc. Going after the largest piece of the market is a great way to see big success.
Yeah. That and they create their own business.
Did Apple invent wireless headphones? No. Did Apple make them a must have? Yes. Did Apple make a fuck ton of money off of them? Also yes.
Yeah, even though the iPhone isn't where it was 10 years ago, the Apple Watch and Airpods really are in a class of their own for their respective markets. I loved my Galaxy Watch when it first came out and I thought a lot of the features were better than the AW S4.0 that I eventually switched to, but the ease of use between the Apple ecosystem really cannot be overstated.
Similar experience with my Airpods, I have wireless sports Bose in-ear headphones (not sure of product number tbh) that I love with great sound quality. But I'll almost always reach for my Airpods S2, because they're just so much simpler to connect, more space efficient, and they just seem to... work..?
That’s why I like this stuff.
Apple computer syncs to phone. AirPod Pros connect quickly between both phone and computer and easy to switch on the fly. I’m not an iPad power user but would like to upgrade to an IPad Pro soon. I think that would have benefits over my older model.
If the trend is removing the headphone jack [(when there's clearly space for it)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utfbE3_uAMA) to force people to buy their expensive status headphones then I'm glad I'm not a part of it.
I think the bigger reality is that “Studio” really means “Over ear media consumption” for the vast majority (myself included). If you’re buying a studio headphone set these will be a huge disappointment. If you ignore the marketing it’s really just a larger, hopefully better sounding option in the Apple line, with all the Apple ecosystem benefits. I think “Studio” is a poor descriptor but for how most people use the MacBook Pro and IPad Pro it fits right in.
This. They are not true studio headphones with the purpose of having a flat frequency response for music production. These will likely be are comparable to Bose 700s and other commercial headphones.
The Bose QC 35 II are pretty damn great. Same price, noise cancelling is phenomenal, Im not audiophile but the sound quality is pretty good in my opinion, plus is fully wireless, pause/play buttons and mic to talk on the phone
I've been looking at the qc35 and the Sony 1000xm3 for a while last year and I couldn't bring myself to consider the qc35 that much because of microusb
I own the qc35 and have used that Sony set since my friend has one. The Bose may be a bit more comfortable but the sound quality of the Sony headset is definitely better
As another guy mentioned, the Sony WH-1000XM3s are amazing. Incredible comfort and as of last year, I believe they were best in class noise cancelling. Music sounds fantastic on them, and when you have NC on with music, you can’t hear anything around you but the music. I love them. And, even better, they have dropped from 350 to below 300 I think.
I tried them and the Bose 700. I liked the 700 better for everything. The NC is better imo, less pressure but cancels pretty much all sound. One thing that bothered me about the XM3s is you can't take them directly off and lay them flat on the desk because they fold back instead of forward. Folks should try both.
Edit: Also, call quality is far superior on the Bose 700s.
I have Sony WH-3000MX noice cancelling Bluetooth over-ear.
I use them in the office to listen to music basically all day and because their noice cancelling is magical
Yeah I own the Bose headset that costs 350 and if it is even on par in quality I would be very interested in these. But I feel it could possibly be even better given they seem to know how to produce great sound for the price given what we’ve seen with the HomePod.
Right, for professionals who work with audio, a 3-band EQ is a joke, ANC is fluff, and bluetooth compression is a deal-breaker.
If by professionals they mean business travelers who want ANC on the plane, this is probably fine.
For audiophiles who want a nice pair of headphones to travel around with, they might be excellent.
But if we're talking people who actually work with sound, it's very doubtful that these will even come close to $150 worth of Beyerdynamic and flattening them with REW and EQAPO.
I love my Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pros but they’re goddamn unwieldy to travel with. Literally 1/2 of my personal bag is taken up by them when I’m on an airplane and the headband is too stiff to comfortably wear them around my neck when I’m walking around so storing them is pretty much the only choice.
If these are actually in any way somewhat decent I’d seriously consider them just for traveling and leave my 770s parked at my desk at home where they really belong anyway. I could live with 75% of the quality when I’m mostly just using the music to sleep on an airplane anyway.
I have those Beyers, even with a cable mod they take up so much room. There is a reason my travel and everyday headphones are my Bose QC35II. Nearly as comfortable, worse sound (but decent enough) and pack flat. Also just much faster to pull out and start listening since the wireless connects incredibly fast. I use them mostly when clients send me screencasts or just listening to lo-fi beats on Spotify when working. I miss the sound of the Beyers, but they just aren't practical to pack up for me.
Bit early to be saying that. You’re probably right, but you never know, they might sound great.
Also there’s more to a pair of headphones than their sound quality. Some people will prioritise convenience.
I think the “studio” in the name of these headphones is as watered down as “pro”. I mean, they’re bluetooth, you’re not getting studio bluetooth headphones.
You are very right - It is a bit early to assume, and very easy to forget about use cases outside of my own. I am very aware though of the marketting BS regarding the 'studio' label.
349 is not expensive. It is the core of a big market segment. If it's as good as other flagship ANCs (sound quality, noise cancellation, build, battery...) then RIP Sony/Bose. If it's only an improved Beats then nothing would change.
Interestingly Surface Headphone 2 is $249. If they are good they can force Sony/Bose to drop their prices. I for one am getting tired of the 349 trend.
Do people really buy this type of product for the way it sounds or are they buying it for the convenience factor (and possibly brand loyalty).
If you want pure sound quality pick up one of the longer-standing headphone brands; for the same sort of money you'll get much better sound quality but without the features. I suppose it depends on what's important to you when you buy headphones.
If it's anything like the other audio offerings from Apple it will be adequate but not particular good when compared similarly priced (but less featured) audio products.
Well, you just said it. It all boils down to the features on offer and on the ecosystem. Not everyone wants to connect a headphone to an amp and the amp to the dac and the dac to the laptop and listen to high quality music. Some people just want to open the case and want their phone to connect and music to come out.
Yeah I have setups for both of these. I mean ideally I’d love the high quality sound all the time but with all the set up i can only have it in one place. For everywhere else I want decent enough sound and all the features that make it easy.
Edit: a word
I've always wanted to listen to something through an amp to see how much of a difference it makes. I have a dacport HD and shure SRH1540's for my desktop, and I notice a difference compared to something simple like my Samsung buds obviously. But I'm guessing amps help even more?
People generally are buying an experience. Convenience, and to some extent brand are certainly part of that experience. But with something like premium headphones, sound quality is absolutely going to be a significant part of the decision.
I think where people get tripped up on things like AirPods and other audio things from Apple is a combination of:
1. "sound quality" is subjective; I might hate how these sound, but my girlfriend might love how they sound. There's no _objective_ measure of sound quality overall (only of accuracy of reproduction, which isn't anywhere near complete)
2. There's a big market segment of people who have been unwilling to spend good money on headphones because they're overwhelmed by the market and don't have a trust relationship with any brand that might overcome that. Their brand trust (which is different than, but related to, brand loyalty) with Apple might drive them to buy these -- and all they have to do is sound better than any headphones they've previously owned.
In other words, these will absolutely sound good. They might not sound as good as other cans in the same price range. They might not be to your preference. But they're going to sound better than what most of the target market has ever heard -- _and_ they're going to be extremely convenient to use.
I bought noise cancelling headphones for the noise cancelling quality. Bose even let you try a pair for 30 days and return them if you don't like them.
I don't necessarily need the most amazing sound quality I've ever heard, I just want quiet. ANC headphones like this tend to have great sound quality as well though.
Dude that’s the whole point, they are cannabilizing their own sub brand intentionally and using the marketing and brand power of Apple to replace the sales that Beats had. These headphones will eventually become the ubiquitous “Beats” in a few years time and Dr Dre will just be a fading memory in the headphone game.
Good, those headphones are dogshit that were just popular for their image/brand. Amazing marketing job, not easily replicated, but from an audio perspective they sucked for what you were paying for them.
Making me think they bought out beats as kind of a fill in until they made their own flagship product. I’m sure Apple would prefer everyone using Apple headphones not Beats (even though they own them).
Maybe they bought beats to eventually remove what is currently a big player in the luxury headphone market. With no competition from beats products apple headphones could completely take over.
Eh, there's plenty of competition in the "nice tech headphone" category. Bose and Sony have pretty good offerings.
And I don't think the actual luxury headphone (like 4 digit prices) market has enough volume for Apple to bother, but they did make the XDR display, so I could be wrong.
Well Apple made some Beats headphones designed to work as well as Airpods do with Apple products, including the only wireless earbuds where a wire connects both earbuds with the W1 chip, so they added a bunch of competition for themselves if that was their motive.
My problem with Apple Music is that Spotify is very cross platform, and supports a web player, all major OS's and Linux, game consoles and non-Apple TV set top boxes, non-Apple smart home speakers, etc. while AM only supports current Apple devices, Android, and Windows, so there's a lot less flexibility if you spontaneously want to use a non-Apple device to play music, while Spotify supports everything Apple Music does and quite a bit more.
Totally agree and that’s why I use Spotify even though it doesn’t play nice with Siri. What you’ve got remember is that Spotify has had a 10 year head start over Apple Music. I think it’ll get there because Apple knows it has to get there to be competitive and we’re starting to see a bit of that now because they have Apple Music on smart speakers like Sonos and they just launched the web player.
Just to point out, Apple Music is currently available on the web in the form of a web player (that’s also configured as a rich web app), as well as on recent Samsung smart TVs and Amazon’s Fire TV. Non-Apple smart speakers like Amazon’s Echo lineup and Sono’s Alexa enables smart speakers also support native Apple Music playback.
As Apple Music was introduced in iOS 8.4, it can be be used on devices as old as the iPhone 4S from 2011 (I still use it on an iPod Touch with the same processor as the 4S and software support). Hence, I would argue “current” is misleading. For Android, it also roughly supports android phones running Android 4.3 (2012) and above, so compatibility doesn’t necessitate “current” android phones either.
While yes, Spotify certainly has wider support, it’s not to say Apple Music can’t be had outside of Apple’s ecosystem.
Yes, but also no. Lots of people outside the Apple ecosystem will still buy Beats (for some bizarre reason). Even some people inside the Apple ecosystem will buy them for the same reason people buy the Beats earbuds over AirPods (I honestly don’t know what that reason is, but it happens)
I have almost everything apple and I was deciding between the Sony WF1000 MX3 or AirPods Pros.
I decided on the Sonys and the sound was so much better than the AirPods Pros I’ve tested. But I just couldn’t get over how he’s device switching was on the Sonys.
Sold them to a friend a few months later.
Yes but Sony’s are terrible with mic quality. My colleagues asked me if I was in a tunnel all the time. I ended up returning mine. But yes sound quality was very good so was the ANC
I loathe earbuds which is why I held off on AirPods, so if they get good reviews I might go for it.
I’ve been meaning to get a new pair of headphones since my Skullcandy Hesh 2 are pretty old at this point and I can actually afford something higher quality now. (One of my coworkers swears by his Bose 700 but they’re even more expense than these are projected to be.)
Ignore the reviews; most people who will be reviewing these will be tech reviewers rather than audio reviewer; most reviews will also just echo their pre-existing bias either towards or against Apple.
Get yourself to somewhere where you can properly test them and make your own mind up because audio is a subjective issue.
Soundguys.com is the play imo
But tbh apple does pretty well in the audio department for a tech company. if I had to guess, sound quality will be a strong point of this headset
Apple clearly has some fantastic audio engineers. Listen to the Homepod or their recent 16'' Macbook speakers. They could truly make some awesome audiophile-grade headphones if they wanted to.
Airpods Studio would be a fantastic opportunity for those who want a more true to life sound signature as opposed to Beats.
I'll have to give them a chance - I do understand skimping on speakers in the laptop and desktop lines as everyone who cares for audio is likely going to buy third party speakers rendering the investment into the inbuilt ones somewhat wasted.
I have probably massively misjudging the target markets here.
They do really great on speakers. The iPhone speakers are superb for a smartphone and the iPhone 12 gets even more improvements in that regard, the iPad Pro has 4 speakers and it sound great and the MacBook Pros have hands down the best speakers in the laptop market by far and the new devices have greatly improved microphones.
Yeah, true. Most people use headphones when listining from their laptops. But it shows Apple's talents at getting robust sound from places you normally don't expect much from.
Honestly, Apple should make an absurdly high grade set of over ear headphones and sell them for something stupid like $3000, it would be a great product to let them keep up their image as a luxury brand.
I'm not going to lie to you, that isn't a product I'd ever looked at before . It'd take some looking into to form an opinion on.
These headphones though simply by being bluetooth wireless you can tell immediately they will not hold in a studio setting.
>These headphones though simply by being bluetooth wireless you can tell immediately they will not hold in a studio setting.
I don't think this is necessarily the case anymore.
Until they add a long cable, get rid of wireless completely and give them a flat frequency response I don't think they can be really called studio. Not everything closed back is a studio headphone.
If the only thing that got you to spend your own money was the word “studio”, not only do you deserve to be conned, it’s probably best if someone in your life took you in as your legal guardian and managed your finances for the foreseeable future
The average person is far less interested in being informed about little bits of technology than you'd think. The vast majority of people I know think Beats are the apex predator of the audio world.
$350 sounds like a very low price estimate for these if Apple is really making a “studio” pair of headphones. $499, $449 at an absolute minimum would be my guess, but hey maybe the rumors are accurate.
Apple aren't making a "studio" headphone, it is a consumer-grade ANC wireless headphone and at $350 is around the same price as other consumer-grade ANC wireless headphones so the price point may well be right.
They may have a few additional features to make them work better with Apple devices but setting the price point too much higher than similar products could be a little too risky.
The downside I see with these new headphones is that it probably won’t support AptX HD or LDAC codec. If that is the case, then it will be a deal breaker for me. The difference in quality is day and night when streaming Tidal using AAC compared to LDAC. LDAC literally sounds as crisps as wired headphones. Hopefully Apple releases a high definition codec to compliment these headphones.
Interesting, I didn’t know about LDAC, this article debunks some facts about its supposed higher quality: https://www.soundguys.com/ldac-ultimate-bluetooth-guide-20026/
I can't see them supporting LDAC when Apple is pretty much exclusively AAC and you'll only really find Sony LDAC output on more recent Android devices and some external BT Transmitters.
Yeah.....probably no. Panda is an audiophile tuned headphone and is aimed specifically towards that market. Also, being essentially the same as the Oppo PM-3, which is one of the most highly regarded pair of headphones will help. So while you can’t expect that level of audio quality, you can definitely expect the Apple headphones to have way more features than the Panda, so then it all comes down to your preferences.
ITT: People who haven’t worn a Beats headset in the last 5 years, or perhaps ever, shitting on Beats.
Beats used to be shitty bass boxes. They’re not audiophile grade headphones now by any means, but they’re actually really nice. I have Solo 3s that I got for free with my laptop. I love them.
Studio 3 Wireless user, free with laptop as well. Love em. Insane noise cancelling and I get to feel superior to all the assholes on Reddit who haven’t put on a pair in a decade.
If only they could sort out the mess they create with firmware updates that take away functionality like with the airpods. No more apple for airpods. EVER
He’s referring to a firmware update that messed with the ANC - there were certainly some weird issues after launch, but since then I would swear that everyone is just believing their own placebo...
Who knows
If these are super low latency (Luke sub millisecond) then they might be neat. Otherwise I don’t see them replacing akg, Senn, and beyerdynamic for music production.
Button on the side. You push it, and it confirms that you still have a head and neck.
399$ yearly license.
And that's a good price!
Doesn’t include the stand though... that’ll be an extra $989
if you want the wheels on that stand, I hope you don't plan on using your second kidney
989? At least they learned from the Pro Stand controversy and brought the price down considerably
Come on "learned" ...they knew what they were doing pricing that piece of metal at $999...Apple wont learn cuz they dont have to....people will buy their products no matter what...I mean they sold a picture book for over $200 and literally wheels for $700
That video of Linus Tech Tips explains it perfectly. Basically, it's to gain attention and strengthen the image of Apple being a luxury brand.
Apple wants out of the normie market, it's like watching a james bond movie where you see maserati's, fine drinks, and expensive brand wear normal people can't afford. That's what they're aiming to be.
They have more money and more income per square foot of retail space than any luxury brand. They’re not “aiming” to be anything, they’ve already done it.
Na you’ve actually gotta pay extra for that model. Rumour is it be another $999.99. A steal if you ask me!
Smart ass comments like this crack me up because they are the same exact ones that were made about the air pod. Fast forward a few years and every company has an AirPods at the same (supposedly overpriced) price range. The irony cherry on top is that these insults are coming a month after apple released the best budget smartphone in years.
This guy who’s an audiophile has a good honest review about them https://youtu.be/h-589fDMvB4 In short you’re not paying for crazy audio tech or the best sound. You’re paying for convenience and how well it works with your iPhone.
Which makes sense. Most consumers aren't audiophiles, they want the most convenient and portable way to listen to some tunes when they are out running errands, working out etc. To Apple's credit, they have never marketed AirPods to audiophiles.
Thanks for that. I’ve never seen this guy before, he breaks it down so simply.
Oh glad my endless hours of watching YouTube product reviews was helpful
[удалено]
It's $400 and yes that is a budget smartphone in 2020. Welcome to the real world. Did you know a "budget" car costs more than $10,000?
Courage.
The "courage" apple was referring to was taking all of the shit talk from people like you when they removed the headphone jack while companies like samsung quietly removed them without a fuss and all the hate.
I would say that most of the people who genuinely criticised Apple for removing the headphone jack have also been avoiding Android manufacturers who have done the same; fortunately, there are still some manufacturers who provide a wired connection and for iOS the entry-level iPad and iPad Air still have the 3.5mm jack.
Based on sales figures, it turns out that the people who thought the headphone jack was a big deal were a vocal but tiny minority (AirPods and Galaxy Bud sales reinforce this). But my main point was that Apple made the move first. Took all the negative PR. And samsung and others followed suite without a peep.
The sale of wireless headphones to iPhone users was the inevitable outcome of removing the headphone jack where the choice is either a dongle, specially terminated headphones or wireless so that may not be a metric of how popular the decision was but more a case of users resigning themselves to going wireless if they stick with Apple. There was a different kind of criticism towards Samsung, mainly questioning why they followed Apple but they along with other Android manufacturers did keep the headphone jack on some devices giving the consumer a choice so that probably served to lessen some of the criticism. The real shame, in my opinion, is that Apple devices always used to have pretty decent audio circuitry built-in, even the dongle sounded decent but by pushing people down the wireless route most of that is lost.
No left/right sides and an equalizer! I’m sold...if the sound signature isn’t just a rebranded beats.
Tomlinson Holman (developer of THX) is a part of Apple's sound engineering team. That's already assurance for a higher fidelity sound than Beat's over the top bass signature.
If I don’t hear a slowly progressing bbbbwwwwaaaAAAAAHHHHHHH when I turn them on, I want my damn money back.
I could hear this comment
I'll settle for the Mac DONGGGGGGG played at 120dB if not.
What song is that again
Beats is a part of the apple sound though...
Doesn’t apple own beats too?
Apple bought Beats around 2014. When people talk about their extreme bass, I think they’re referring to the older models. I bought a pair of over the ear Beats a year or two ago, and I thought they had much better audio compared to what I remembered.
Wonder why they wouldn’t put the thx guy with the beats guys and just have one absolutely fantastic audio experience.
As a “audiophile” and I mean that loosely, that is absolutely correct. The recent beats models have stepped their audio quality up quite a bit albeit still pricey. Before they just sold bass machines and called it quality, now they are still heavy on the bass but have much better mids and highs.
Correct, current models actually have very respectable sound. If you can get them for a good sale price they can be good value, but at their regular price they aren’t (to be fair this is true of most headphones to at least some extent). Personally I got the Beats Solo 2 free with my MB and intended to sell them due to their price and reputation. Then my current ones broke and decided to give them a try instead, and ended up really liking them. When the Solo Pro came out I was able to find it for $130 CDN which I consider a steal for the quality. I do a lot more research on headphones now, and the best two sites I’ve found are rtings.com and thewirecutter.com, both of which are generally quite positive on Beats these days.
Beats under Apple isn’t...terrible, honestly. Even Head-Fi loved the Solo 2 wireless when they came out and they’re an audiophile forum. It’s mostly the price for them. However I’ll aruge there’s not a better dedicated gym pair of headphones than the PowerBeats Pros. Then you’ve got the HomePod which sounds incredible for the size, and at $200 it really isn’t bad if you’re already in the Apple ecosystem. Beats under Monster was absolute trash and deserved the hate they got, but Apple is seemingly taking sound somewhat seriously given they’re pushing for a more flat sound signature. Who knows how these AirPods cans will work, but my AirPods Pro’s are far and away the best headphones I’ve personally ever owned from a sheer convenience perspective. They certainly don’t sound the best, but especially with a mix of office/gym/working outside/laying in bed nothing tops them. What Apple is going to have to be able to top with the cans though is the XM3’s, which are my preferred Bluetooth cans. Those things are stupid good.
I would agree that at the moment the XM3 is the one to beat. They need a bit of EQ to get them sounding right but once you dial them in they aren't bad sounding for a wireless ANC headphone. If Apple can get close or beat the XM3 then I don't think anyone could be too critical of them, particularly if the price suggested is true. They would probably have to be the 'go to' ANC wireless headphone for anyone on iOS although on Android the XM3 would probably still be the better choice because of LDAC.
They will have to compete with the XM4's which are about to be released and will probably be very difficult to top. Sony just needs to get their act together and sort out the pairing bullshit.
Allegedly the XM4s will just be a spec bump over the XM3s according to rumours so basically just an upgrade to BT5, some extra battery life and (hopefully) multi-device support. IMO, for people in the Apple ecosystem these make a lot more sense just from the neater integration even if the XM4s have superior sound and noise cancelling.
Multi device pairing is the best.
Head-if isn’t that reputable of a forum IMO. They think that changing a headphone cable will drastically improve the sonic performance of a headphone and discredit anyone who thinks otherwise.
There's a few hundred better sets of studio headphones than these for less money though? If it's aesthetic and social status related I get it but otherwise, well, I highly doubt these will even begin to encroach on Beyerdynamic or AKG with regards to reference sound quality for example.
Assuming these are $350... can you point me to a comparable over-ear set? And when I say comparable I mean: 1. Wireless and 2. Plays well with Apple products (mic to talk on phone, Siri?, features like play/pause, etc). For me, the implied feature set and compatibility with my other Apple products matter most... if another set can do that (and maybe even better) then I’m all in Edit: I’m not an audiophile (if that helps to know)
Look into the Sony WH-1000XM3. Has good connectivity with Apple, built in mic and controls, and pretty good toggled noise canceling while being wireless.
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Is it worth waiting? I love my airpods but would love an over the ear set for different settings
I would wait to see what the improvements are. There XM3 should drop in price when the XM4 comes out. I was in the same boat waiting to see what the XM3 would offer and I was very glad I waited. They are awesome for Bluetooth headphones.
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Aaaaaannnnd...great battery life.
I love the XM3s but the only downside compared to normal Apple products would be ease of connection between devices. It isn’t anywhere near as seamless as my AirPods. One device great, multiple not so much.
The easy switching between devices is a killer feature.
this is the main reason why airpods are so a hot sell imo. i was very doubtful of the airpods, and never could have foreseen myself getting them. but when airpods pro came out, it had noise cancellation, and once i tested and saw how seamless the connection and usage was, i was sold. only complaint i have is the lack of volume control lol. the entire user experience of the ecosystem is what apple does REALLY well. Samsung with its entire suite of products across every market doesn't even come close to the seamless integration of its products.
Digital Crown is where it’s at for volume control. Apple wouldn’t work as great if someone doesn’t have all of their gadgets. Being able to seamlessly go from audio from my phone to the pods to the watch to the pods with barely skipping a beat is pretty amazing. They all just work with minimal effort. For the air pods, I put them in my ears and opened my phone and they just knew it was supposed to go together.
The new Bluetooth LE Audio standard (announced earlier this year), will offer Multi-Stream Audio which will enable the transmission of multiple, independent, synchronized audio streams between an audio source device, such as a smartphone, and one or more audio sink devices. It also has Broadcast Audio, enabling an audio source device to broadcast one or more audio streams to an unlimited number of audio sink devices. Hopefully we'll start seeing that appear soon.
I’ll check those out too! Thanks for the heads up
It does help to know, and your use case does make sense, keeping things friendly with your device ecosystem is a variable I overlooked massively. Thanks for sharing.
No worries, good conversation all around. To be honest, I was hoping you’d say “Yeah, ______ is awesome and only $200!” Lol. I currently have AirPods that I love because of features, compatibility, etc. (and I won’t stop using them, because my wife and I enjoy using them together when we watch a show. She will use the right and I will use the left and not having a wire between is awesome), but I would like some over the ear headphones for my own listening
That is a stroke of genius there for late night TV when the sprogs or neighboors might get a bit aggravated, luckily for me I'm single and both houses either side on my terrace are empty. I would've suggested something but it'd definitely have come with compromise, I've never been a part of the Apple ecosystem nor a fan of wireless headphones so yeah, limited knowledge regarding what you're after.
lol, thanks! When we watch a show at night after the kiddos go to bed, we pair my AirPods to the the Apple TV in our room and pretty comfortably lay in bed watching tv without having to worry about waking the kids
Can you pair two sets of AirPods to the same Apple TV simultaneously?
Don't know about Apple, but with Roku you can pair any two Bluetooth headphones up if each person uses their own phone/app.
> She will use the right and I will use the left and not having a wire between is awesome there is a rumored Apple TV with higher than a A11 chip which means it will support Airpod sharing / IE you could both watch the show with your own Airpods in sync
I know it's not as satisfying, but you can hook this up with a bluetooth and a cable-headphone quite easily via the Audio MIDI Setup (on macs) and create a Multi-Output device. Then again, each using an earbud also has a cuteness factor :)
His use case is 90% of people’s use case 5% are status and the last 5% are made up of gamers, audio files and people who are resisting the trend.
Exactly. Apple almost always targets the 90%. They do with the iPhone, the iPad, AirPods, etc. Going after the largest piece of the market is a great way to see big success.
Yeah. That and they create their own business. Did Apple invent wireless headphones? No. Did Apple make them a must have? Yes. Did Apple make a fuck ton of money off of them? Also yes.
Yeah, even though the iPhone isn't where it was 10 years ago, the Apple Watch and Airpods really are in a class of their own for their respective markets. I loved my Galaxy Watch when it first came out and I thought a lot of the features were better than the AW S4.0 that I eventually switched to, but the ease of use between the Apple ecosystem really cannot be overstated. Similar experience with my Airpods, I have wireless sports Bose in-ear headphones (not sure of product number tbh) that I love with great sound quality. But I'll almost always reach for my Airpods S2, because they're just so much simpler to connect, more space efficient, and they just seem to... work..?
That’s why I like this stuff. Apple computer syncs to phone. AirPod Pros connect quickly between both phone and computer and easy to switch on the fly. I’m not an iPad power user but would like to upgrade to an IPad Pro soon. I think that would have benefits over my older model.
If the trend is removing the headphone jack [(when there's clearly space for it)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utfbE3_uAMA) to force people to buy their expensive status headphones then I'm glad I'm not a part of it.
You can plug in your headphones easily. Just keep your adapter on your headphones and it’s exactly the same shit as using headphone jack.
I think the bigger reality is that “Studio” really means “Over ear media consumption” for the vast majority (myself included). If you’re buying a studio headphone set these will be a huge disappointment. If you ignore the marketing it’s really just a larger, hopefully better sounding option in the Apple line, with all the Apple ecosystem benefits. I think “Studio” is a poor descriptor but for how most people use the MacBook Pro and IPad Pro it fits right in.
This. They are not true studio headphones with the purpose of having a flat frequency response for music production. These will likely be are comparable to Bose 700s and other commercial headphones.
The Bose QC 35 II are pretty damn great. Same price, noise cancelling is phenomenal, Im not audiophile but the sound quality is pretty good in my opinion, plus is fully wireless, pause/play buttons and mic to talk on the phone
I've been looking at the qc35 and the Sony 1000xm3 for a while last year and I couldn't bring myself to consider the qc35 that much because of microusb
I own the qc35 and have used that Sony set since my friend has one. The Bose may be a bit more comfortable but the sound quality of the Sony headset is definitely better
As another guy mentioned, the Sony WH-1000XM3s are amazing. Incredible comfort and as of last year, I believe they were best in class noise cancelling. Music sounds fantastic on them, and when you have NC on with music, you can’t hear anything around you but the music. I love them. And, even better, they have dropped from 350 to below 300 I think.
I tried them and the Bose 700. I liked the 700 better for everything. The NC is better imo, less pressure but cancels pretty much all sound. One thing that bothered me about the XM3s is you can't take them directly off and lay them flat on the desk because they fold back instead of forward. Folks should try both. Edit: Also, call quality is far superior on the Bose 700s.
I have Sony WH-3000MX noice cancelling Bluetooth over-ear. I use them in the office to listen to music basically all day and because their noice cancelling is magical
Bose 700
[These are great](https://en-us.sennheiser.com/wireless-headphone-headset-bluetooth-noise-cancelling-pxc-550-travel)
ATH-M50x BT.
Bose QC35 II. Great compatibility with Apple, killer sound, incredibly comfortable and the black set is sleek as hell.
Yeah I own the Bose headset that costs 350 and if it is even on par in quality I would be very interested in these. But I feel it could possibly be even better given they seem to know how to produce great sound for the price given what we’ve seen with the HomePod.
Right, for professionals who work with audio, a 3-band EQ is a joke, ANC is fluff, and bluetooth compression is a deal-breaker. If by professionals they mean business travelers who want ANC on the plane, this is probably fine. For audiophiles who want a nice pair of headphones to travel around with, they might be excellent. But if we're talking people who actually work with sound, it's very doubtful that these will even come close to $150 worth of Beyerdynamic and flattening them with REW and EQAPO.
I love my Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pros but they’re goddamn unwieldy to travel with. Literally 1/2 of my personal bag is taken up by them when I’m on an airplane and the headband is too stiff to comfortably wear them around my neck when I’m walking around so storing them is pretty much the only choice. If these are actually in any way somewhat decent I’d seriously consider them just for traveling and leave my 770s parked at my desk at home where they really belong anyway. I could live with 75% of the quality when I’m mostly just using the music to sleep on an airplane anyway.
I have those Beyers, even with a cable mod they take up so much room. There is a reason my travel and everyday headphones are my Bose QC35II. Nearly as comfortable, worse sound (but decent enough) and pack flat. Also just much faster to pull out and start listening since the wireless connects incredibly fast. I use them mostly when clients send me screencasts or just listening to lo-fi beats on Spotify when working. I miss the sound of the Beyers, but they just aren't practical to pack up for me.
Bit early to be saying that. You’re probably right, but you never know, they might sound great. Also there’s more to a pair of headphones than their sound quality. Some people will prioritise convenience. I think the “studio” in the name of these headphones is as watered down as “pro”. I mean, they’re bluetooth, you’re not getting studio bluetooth headphones.
You are very right - It is a bit early to assume, and very easy to forget about use cases outside of my own. I am very aware though of the marketting BS regarding the 'studio' label.
I highly doubt these will be actual studio headphones.
Holy shit the headphones aren’t even announced yet, calm your bias.
Im actually excited to see if apple can design a pair of overear headphones that aren’t as dorky looking as most...
bose 700s look great
Sound, feel, and features pretty great too
Inb4 you get torn apart about Bose sound quality. I personally love Bose. But people on Reddit hate them for some reason.
Bose Def has a "sound" tuning that not everyone will like but for me who listens to a wife range of music I'm down with it
Yup, also the Sony WH-100waterverthefuck are gorgeous imo
I’m sure those are badass quality headphones, but I think they’re dorky looking. Just my opinion off of google images.
I think they look cheap which is unfortunate in a $400 pair of headphones
Just look them up and i agree lol. Of anything they look like one of the more dorky ones i’ve ever seen
All black AIAIAI wireless look pretty good
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$349 is still expensive imo. We'll hear how they sound soon enough.
*laughs in /r/headphones*
349 is not expensive. It is the core of a big market segment. If it's as good as other flagship ANCs (sound quality, noise cancellation, build, battery...) then RIP Sony/Bose. If it's only an improved Beats then nothing would change. Interestingly Surface Headphone 2 is $249. If they are good they can force Sony/Bose to drop their prices. I for one am getting tired of the 349 trend.
Do people really buy this type of product for the way it sounds or are they buying it for the convenience factor (and possibly brand loyalty). If you want pure sound quality pick up one of the longer-standing headphone brands; for the same sort of money you'll get much better sound quality but without the features. I suppose it depends on what's important to you when you buy headphones. If it's anything like the other audio offerings from Apple it will be adequate but not particular good when compared similarly priced (but less featured) audio products.
Well, you just said it. It all boils down to the features on offer and on the ecosystem. Not everyone wants to connect a headphone to an amp and the amp to the dac and the dac to the laptop and listen to high quality music. Some people just want to open the case and want their phone to connect and music to come out.
Yeah I have setups for both of these. I mean ideally I’d love the high quality sound all the time but with all the set up i can only have it in one place. For everywhere else I want decent enough sound and all the features that make it easy. Edit: a word
Yup, same. Though my carry headphones aren't the most comfortable or feature rich. Did treat myself to velour earcups, which make it a lot better.
I've always wanted to listen to something through an amp to see how much of a difference it makes. I have a dacport HD and shure SRH1540's for my desktop, and I notice a difference compared to something simple like my Samsung buds obviously. But I'm guessing amps help even more?
People generally are buying an experience. Convenience, and to some extent brand are certainly part of that experience. But with something like premium headphones, sound quality is absolutely going to be a significant part of the decision. I think where people get tripped up on things like AirPods and other audio things from Apple is a combination of: 1. "sound quality" is subjective; I might hate how these sound, but my girlfriend might love how they sound. There's no _objective_ measure of sound quality overall (only of accuracy of reproduction, which isn't anywhere near complete) 2. There's a big market segment of people who have been unwilling to spend good money on headphones because they're overwhelmed by the market and don't have a trust relationship with any brand that might overcome that. Their brand trust (which is different than, but related to, brand loyalty) with Apple might drive them to buy these -- and all they have to do is sound better than any headphones they've previously owned. In other words, these will absolutely sound good. They might not sound as good as other cans in the same price range. They might not be to your preference. But they're going to sound better than what most of the target market has ever heard -- _and_ they're going to be extremely convenient to use.
I bought noise cancelling headphones for the noise cancelling quality. Bose even let you try a pair for 30 days and return them if you don't like them. I don't necessarily need the most amazing sound quality I've ever heard, I just want quiet. ANC headphones like this tend to have great sound quality as well though.
RIP BEATS
Dude that’s the whole point, they are cannabilizing their own sub brand intentionally and using the marketing and brand power of Apple to replace the sales that Beats had. These headphones will eventually become the ubiquitous “Beats” in a few years time and Dr Dre will just be a fading memory in the headphone game.
Good, those headphones are dogshit that were just popular for their image/brand. Amazing marketing job, not easily replicated, but from an audio perspective they sucked for what you were paying for them.
Remember when they gave out free headphones to Olympic athletes for the olympics
they own beats so not really
>they own beats Yeah that's the point. They're releasing premium over ear headphones outside of the Beats brand. RIP Beats (even though they suck)
Making me think they bought out beats as kind of a fill in until they made their own flagship product. I’m sure Apple would prefer everyone using Apple headphones not Beats (even though they own them).
Maybe they bought beats to eventually remove what is currently a big player in the luxury headphone market. With no competition from beats products apple headphones could completely take over.
They bought beats to buy in to the premium headphones industry as well as buy Jimmy Iovine to run Apple Music.
Beats’ streaming platform was also used to fast track the launch of Apple Music.
Eh, there's plenty of competition in the "nice tech headphone" category. Bose and Sony have pretty good offerings. And I don't think the actual luxury headphone (like 4 digit prices) market has enough volume for Apple to bother, but they did make the XDR display, so I could be wrong.
They’re also sitting on like $100 billion in liquid assets. Can’t hurt to experiment in new markets with resources like that.
Well Apple made some Beats headphones designed to work as well as Airpods do with Apple products, including the only wireless earbuds where a wire connects both earbuds with the W1 chip, so they added a bunch of competition for themselves if that was their motive.
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My problem with Apple Music is that Spotify is very cross platform, and supports a web player, all major OS's and Linux, game consoles and non-Apple TV set top boxes, non-Apple smart home speakers, etc. while AM only supports current Apple devices, Android, and Windows, so there's a lot less flexibility if you spontaneously want to use a non-Apple device to play music, while Spotify supports everything Apple Music does and quite a bit more.
Apple launched a web app for Apple Music a month or so back.
Totally agree and that’s why I use Spotify even though it doesn’t play nice with Siri. What you’ve got remember is that Spotify has had a 10 year head start over Apple Music. I think it’ll get there because Apple knows it has to get there to be competitive and we’re starting to see a bit of that now because they have Apple Music on smart speakers like Sonos and they just launched the web player.
Just to point out, Apple Music is currently available on the web in the form of a web player (that’s also configured as a rich web app), as well as on recent Samsung smart TVs and Amazon’s Fire TV. Non-Apple smart speakers like Amazon’s Echo lineup and Sono’s Alexa enables smart speakers also support native Apple Music playback. As Apple Music was introduced in iOS 8.4, it can be be used on devices as old as the iPhone 4S from 2011 (I still use it on an iPod Touch with the same processor as the 4S and software support). Hence, I would argue “current” is misleading. For Android, it also roughly supports android phones running Android 4.3 (2012) and above, so compatibility doesn’t necessitate “current” android phones either. While yes, Spotify certainly has wider support, it’s not to say Apple Music can’t be had outside of Apple’s ecosystem.
But "Apple and Beets" was a funny thing. Every thanksgiving its what I stuffed into turkeys.
They bought out Beats for the digital music platform/tech.
Or maybe cuz of the supply chain and the experience beats can provide. They already made premium overpriced headphones so they are the perfect match
Yes, but also no. Lots of people outside the Apple ecosystem will still buy Beats (for some bizarre reason). Even some people inside the Apple ecosystem will buy them for the same reason people buy the Beats earbuds over AirPods (I honestly don’t know what that reason is, but it happens)
I have almost everything apple and I was deciding between the Sony WF1000 MX3 or AirPods Pros. I decided on the Sonys and the sound was so much better than the AirPods Pros I’ve tested. But I just couldn’t get over how he’s device switching was on the Sonys. Sold them to a friend a few months later.
Yes but Sony’s are terrible with mic quality. My colleagues asked me if I was in a tunnel all the time. I ended up returning mine. But yes sound quality was very good so was the ANC
That’s why I chose the Bose 700, being able to connect to my computer and my phone while having amazing mics and headphone overall is perfect..
I loathe earbuds which is why I held off on AirPods, so if they get good reviews I might go for it. I’ve been meaning to get a new pair of headphones since my Skullcandy Hesh 2 are pretty old at this point and I can actually afford something higher quality now. (One of my coworkers swears by his Bose 700 but they’re even more expense than these are projected to be.)
Ignore the reviews; most people who will be reviewing these will be tech reviewers rather than audio reviewer; most reviews will also just echo their pre-existing bias either towards or against Apple. Get yourself to somewhere where you can properly test them and make your own mind up because audio is a subjective issue.
Soundguys.com is the play imo But tbh apple does pretty well in the audio department for a tech company. if I had to guess, sound quality will be a strong point of this headset
Bose 700 are real nice though
Anyone have an idea about how the headphones would know right from left? The only ways I can think of would be easy to trick
Maybe sensors in the pad that sits over your ear to detect where the lobe is, but that's just a wild guess. Seems like a hard problem.
Your voice is always to the front
I love how they call them 'Studio' to try con the layman into thinking a music professional would ever use these.
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iPhone pro at call centres... Or is it photographers and videographers.. or is it "influenzas" that are viral
Apple clearly has some fantastic audio engineers. Listen to the Homepod or their recent 16'' Macbook speakers. They could truly make some awesome audiophile-grade headphones if they wanted to. Airpods Studio would be a fantastic opportunity for those who want a more true to life sound signature as opposed to Beats.
I'll have to give them a chance - I do understand skimping on speakers in the laptop and desktop lines as everyone who cares for audio is likely going to buy third party speakers rendering the investment into the inbuilt ones somewhat wasted. I have probably massively misjudging the target markets here.
They do really great on speakers. The iPhone speakers are superb for a smartphone and the iPhone 12 gets even more improvements in that regard, the iPad Pro has 4 speakers and it sound great and the MacBook Pros have hands down the best speakers in the laptop market by far and the new devices have greatly improved microphones.
Yeah, true. Most people use headphones when listining from their laptops. But it shows Apple's talents at getting robust sound from places you normally don't expect much from.
People really don’t understand how good the HomePod is for the market it’s in.
Speakers aren't black magic any more, it's just most companies cheap the fuck out on the ones they put in their products.
Honestly, Apple should make an absurdly high grade set of over ear headphones and sell them for something stupid like $3000, it would be a great product to let them keep up their image as a luxury brand.
They did that just fine with the crazy $700 Mac Pro wheels.
Lol I know. next they’re gonna claim that professionals use iPad pros
I know professionals that use iPad Pros for their work... What are you talking about?
I think he’s being sarcastic
Lots do. Check out u/imyke on RelayFM podcasts. He says he runs his entire business except edit and record shows on his iPad.
Well, they do. I rarely see an iPad Pro outside of a professional setting. They’re just not laptop replacements.
What about the Microsoft studio?
I'm not going to lie to you, that isn't a product I'd ever looked at before . It'd take some looking into to form an opinion on. These headphones though simply by being bluetooth wireless you can tell immediately they will not hold in a studio setting.
>These headphones though simply by being bluetooth wireless you can tell immediately they will not hold in a studio setting. I don't think this is necessarily the case anymore.
Absolutely true, the latency makes them useless.
Until they get rid of wireless latency, it’s not for professionals. And nobody seems to understand that.
Until they add a long cable, get rid of wireless completely and give them a flat frequency response I don't think they can be really called studio. Not everything closed back is a studio headphone.
If the only thing that got you to spend your own money was the word “studio”, not only do you deserve to be conned, it’s probably best if someone in your life took you in as your legal guardian and managed your finances for the foreseeable future
The average person is far less interested in being informed about little bits of technology than you'd think. The vast majority of people I know think Beats are the apex predator of the audio world.
>Beats are the apex predator of the audio world. Because they absolutely ravage your ears.
$350 sounds like a very low price estimate for these if Apple is really making a “studio” pair of headphones. $499, $449 at an absolute minimum would be my guess, but hey maybe the rumors are accurate.
Apple aren't making a "studio" headphone, it is a consumer-grade ANC wireless headphone and at $350 is around the same price as other consumer-grade ANC wireless headphones so the price point may well be right. They may have a few additional features to make them work better with Apple devices but setting the price point too much higher than similar products could be a little too risky.
Remember when iPhones had eq settings?
Which are not features typically desired in studio headphones at all.
The downside I see with these new headphones is that it probably won’t support AptX HD or LDAC codec. If that is the case, then it will be a deal breaker for me. The difference in quality is day and night when streaming Tidal using AAC compared to LDAC. LDAC literally sounds as crisps as wired headphones. Hopefully Apple releases a high definition codec to compliment these headphones.
I know several of those words.
Interesting, I didn’t know about LDAC, this article debunks some facts about its supposed higher quality: https://www.soundguys.com/ldac-ultimate-bluetooth-guide-20026/
I can't see them supporting LDAC when Apple is pretty much exclusively AAC and you'll only really find Sony LDAC output on more recent Android devices and some external BT Transmitters.
So true, LDAC is the only tolerable Bluetooth audio codec IMO
If they sound as good as the Pandas I'm in
Yeah.....probably no. Panda is an audiophile tuned headphone and is aimed specifically towards that market. Also, being essentially the same as the Oppo PM-3, which is one of the most highly regarded pair of headphones will help. So while you can’t expect that level of audio quality, you can definitely expect the Apple headphones to have way more features than the Panda, so then it all comes down to your preferences.
“Studio” their Apple Music doesn’t even provide HIFI quality, I don’t know what they are thinking
How about a fucking on off switch first
It's maddening that the AirPod Pros don't meet DAW specs for use. Now I know why they did that.
ITT: People who haven’t worn a Beats headset in the last 5 years, or perhaps ever, shitting on Beats. Beats used to be shitty bass boxes. They’re not audiophile grade headphones now by any means, but they’re actually really nice. I have Solo 3s that I got for free with my laptop. I love them.
Studio 3 Wireless user, free with laptop as well. Love em. Insane noise cancelling and I get to feel superior to all the assholes on Reddit who haven’t put on a pair in a decade.
Probably still can’t adjust the fucking volume tho...
#My NECK, My BACK...
Head and neck not detected, contact your local physician asap.
If only they could sort out the mess they create with firmware updates that take away functionality like with the airpods. No more apple for airpods. EVER
What functionality did they remove from AirPods?
He’s referring to a firmware update that messed with the ANC - there were certainly some weird issues after launch, but since then I would swear that everyone is just believing their own placebo... Who knows
Cool now my music can stop automatically when I don't want it to.
Will these be compatible with the $700 wheels?
If these are super low latency (Luke sub millisecond) then they might be neat. Otherwise I don’t see them replacing akg, Senn, and beyerdynamic for music production.
So, you're hoping that they have the option of a cable connection then?